Thomas Plenert

Dammbeck, himself an alumnus of the Leipzig Academy for Graphic and Book Design, presents the origins of the new German realism developed by the so-called Leipzig School, which took place in the context of socialist-realist dogma in the GDR before the Wall was built in 1961. After the Wall came down in 1989, what happened to the major Leipzig School painters Werner Tübke and Bernhard Heisig, who had been called “Dürer’s red heirs” by West German journalists in the 1970s? In the film, Tübke, Heisig, and former GDR officials who were involved with the cultural scene in Leipzig at the time talk about modernism, conformism, political pressure, party discipline, personal claims, and fading memory. The documentary paints an insightful, often critical picture of early East German art history.

At the Vienna Art Academy in 1994, an unidentified person painted over 27 works by Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer. Rainer had become world-famous for his abstract art and, in particular, for his over-layering of photographs and overpainting of his own and other artists’ works. But who painted over the “overpainter”? Speculation rages: Did he attack his works himself? A year later, an unsigned letter surfaces claiming responsibility for the act directed against Rainer – and modern art in general – and accusing the artist of being complicit with “destructive modernism.” At the same time, Austria is shaken by a series of mail bombs by the Bajuwarian Liberation Army, in response to the supposed threat to Austria’s “German identity.” Are there connections between the overpainting event and the mail bombs? Or is this all just a game? A dream? Or perhaps a hallucination?

In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer and the whole village starts talking about it.

A German communist wrongly accused and sent to a labour camp has to keep her past life hidden for the sake of her and her family’s freedom.

Beyond Boundaries is a lyrical, essay-like road movie tracing the scars of war in Europe and telling of places where a border is known as “Meja”, “Granica”, “Határ” or “Frontiera” – the borders of Slovenia to Austria, Croatia, Hungary, and Italy.

Master painter Hans Moll and his wife, the television announcer Ms. Wellinek and her husband, and the German-Russian Jew Yevgenia have many things to live on: food, drink, an apartment. What they do not have is work. They all discover the yearning for a chance to start all over again and bring themselves back to life.

The film draws attention to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, especially among adolescents and young adults, and identifies partner changes and alcohol as factors that promote the spread. As basic preventive information about the sexually transmitted diseases gonorrhea and syphilis, the film explains symptoms in men and women and possible consequences such as permanent infertility or agonizing infirmity.